graduate assistant

graduate researcher

research assistant

teaching assistant

assistant professor

University of South Florida

Working at the University of South Florida has been a valuable and rewarding experience. The role has provided me with the opportunity to strengthen my skills in healthcare administration, patient coordination, and office operations within a structured academic and medical environment.

Throughout my time at USF, I gained extensive experience handling patient check-in and check-out processes, insurance verification, scheduling, and front-end administrative support. I also developed strong proficiency in EPIC, managing accurate documentation, and ensuring compliance with HIPAA and institutional policies.

One of the most meaningful aspects of the role was interacting with patients and supporting their care experience. I learned how to manage high-volume workloads while maintaining professionalism, accuracy, and empathy in every interaction. Working alongside physicians, nurses, and administrative staff helped me improve my communication skills and understand the importance of teamwork in delivering quality patient care.

Overall, this position has helped me grow both professionally and personally by strengthening my attention to detail, organizational skills, and ability to work in a fast-paced healthcare environment. I appreciate the experience and the opportunity to contribute to such a respected institution.

A 4 month-internship 

I worked in the International Relations arena. The institute I worked with is located in Tampa, at the University of South Florida, in the International affairs department. I was in charge of the administrative tasks ( applications of the French students who applied to receive tuition exemption, excel sheets, reports to the hierarchy, mailing, phoning  to promote the institute), the communication area (website update). I was in charge of the promotion of the institute. I supported different departments to plan and organise events such as conferences, meetings (marketing, IT, administration departments). I welcomed important people such as Ambassadors and  Ministries during those events.  Moreover, I organised my own event which was a panel discussion with the Honorary Consul of France and President of FRAMCO ( French-American Business Council), 4 French and Belgium entrepreneurs, in collaboration with the College of Business of the University of South Florida. For this event I was in charge of the entire organisation (funding, finding sponsors, catering, logistics, coordination with different academic departments). The goal of this event was to provide tools (business tools, cultural aspects, legislation) to the students to set up their companies in France and Florida. I also worked very closely with FRAMCO for their newsletters.

It's been 6 years since I have left this place and I still think about the trauma I experienced daily (no lie).  I endured 5 years. The employee turnover rate is ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH due to mismanagement along with low pay.  They don't value loyalty and years of service as they play favorites.  I was overlooked for 5 promotions so I gave them more than 3 strikes.  The final straw was when they decided to hire a candidate out of office rather than me.  I wasn't the only one they have done this to!  There are MANY OTHERS. They didn't care about the fact that I completed the job duties of 3 OTHER financial aid assistants who were either on pregnancy leave or newly hired and not yet ready.  Upper management within the office was absolutely LOST!  If you are employed here now, I suggest you RUN...FORREST...RUN!

If you were good at your job and cared like I did, then you were quite often taken advantage of and given more work/duties without any pay increase.   I often felt being taken advantage of along with many others in the office.  All this on top of selling debt to lovely students and parents made this a very toxic place to work.  The raises they gave were peanuts that were nothing compared to the cost of living increases...yet the President gets $800k-$1.3M each year!

I had a wonderful time being a researcher at USF. My days were driven by a strong desire to know more, to search for answers, and to advocate for peoples health. 

I learned a vast amount of research skills, the unseen world of public health and public safety advocacy. I learned to bring my ideas to explain phenomena or to stand by a population affected by a hazard and environmental problem. I even learned about GIS and mapping phenomena to explain an environmental problem and suggest solutions.

The faculty facilitates the process and they are mostly available on campus. The resources are endless at the college of Public Health. The facilities were alright and we had access to extended hours so our projects could always be done anyway. 

The most enjoyable part was the community of intuitive and creative minds whom were around our computer lab. We had students from all over the world and every one could express freely in an environment that fostered science and advocacy. 

The hardest part was parking during class hours on weekdays yet, there was always a spot after hunting for 15 minutes. On my last semester I brought a folding bike and park at any lot so, I could to enjoy my bike ride.

My job was to work as a tutor and mentor for INTO USF students and help them with understanding their classes. As a part of that I needed to be in the class along with the student and understand the classes. I later held group sessions and individual sessions to help the students with an questions with the class work or homework. As a part of my job I learnt to be a mentor, encourage the student with team work and help them understand the class. I learnt to pay attention to detail and learnt to understand what the students need and how I can help them to make them understand the class . The co-workers were very cooperative and we helped each other at various times like helping understand how to fill in reports, how to start with sessions, fill in time sheets etc. I enjoyed being with students and helping them successfully complete the class and get good grade. I enjoyed the moments when students came back to me to tell how our discussions helped them with the questions in the exam. The hardest part was sometimes to guess and fully be prepared with the questions the student may ask.

I performed marketing and communications work and was given lots of leeway to do my work. I was given ample time and had a great work life balance. The office culture was relaxed, but business casual. My supervisor was amazing and very supportive of my work and development as an employee. The university had numerous positions open that I could move into, but none seemed like a right fit for growth at my time there. All faculty, staff, and students were supportive of the university which made for an even better company to be proud of.

Sadly, as a OPS employee I was limited on benefits such as paid time off and tuition reimbursement. These negatives did put a damper on the job as the university closes multiple times a year, sometimes for over a week, and you would not be paid because it is a holiday. They also utilize OPS employees every year in this way and allow employees to continue workin in OPS jobs for 5+ years at times before ever allowing them to transition into a staff member. This kinda policy was very sad for morale. Also, as a state job the pay is lower than private industries, but you have to weigh this with health benefit costs. Other than this, I loved every minute at USF.

Without a doubt, the hardest part of the job was trying to manage the overwhelming caseload without any real support. With over 600 students to advise and no time or resources to truly help each one, it felt like I was just putting out fires all day. It was mentally and emotionally draining, and the lack of any sort of relief or backup made it even worse.  It’s hard to overstate how poorly this department was managed. The School Director was incredibly lazy, showing no real interest in resolving the endless issues we faced. The administrative staff seemed just as disengaged. There was no real structure, and expectations were constantly unclear. It felt like everyone was just winging it without any consideration for staff well-being or student success.  If you're looking for a place where you can develop your skills or grow professionally, look elsewhere. There were no opportunities for advancement or any efforts to help employees grow in their roles. The work environment felt stagnant, and the lack of leadership made it clear that growth wasn’t a priority for the department.

Work-life balance
There is none for GAs. I’ve never once worked within my contracted hours in ten consecutive semesters of employment. Expected to do a ridiculous amount of work for and not get paid for it. Professors are all miserable and s rolls downhill.

Pay & benefits
Horrible. Can’t survive. Have to take out student loans. Graduate student union has to fight with university who tried to take away our health insurance during pandemic.

Job security and advancement
No job security for GAs. Never know semester to semester whether or not you will receive a contract. Sometimes they rescind contract after semester starts leaving you completely and utterly screwed.

Management
Most professors I have worked with are great people but they are so stressed from all the pressure put on them to publish that they end up putting a lot of demands on their GAs.

Culture
Most colleagues have been good to collaborate with. Can’t imagine not having support of some.  Never would have survived.

Overall
When I first accepted my GA position I didn’t know that I was replacing a full time faculty member and two GAs. They had me doing the job of three people. This is the kind of nonsense they do to GAs if you can even get an assistantship at all.

higher education is fun and engaging! 

some of the advisors give off an impression that they are all too busy to ask questions or provide support and often times I hear them gossiping and talking bad about certain students which is a little disappointing given their roles as student advisors.  

their is a lot of underutilization of funding and opportunities to improve the student life on the sm campus. students pay large sum in terms of tuition and often times they aren't getting the opportunity to engage in student life due inattentive event management and training for the student employees that host the events. they need to have someone who is solely in charge of managing activities and events and someone who has the availability support the onboarding process of student employees. often times the position students are hired for is their first or one of their first times in a semi-professional role and require additional training and support to succeed in the role.

hopefully they will improve the opportunities and support for future students.

The benefits at USF are phenomenal, from the medical benefits to the leave accruals and employee tuition program.
Atmosphere is generally positive but will vary greatly by unit and is largely dependent upon the management of each specific unit, as area VP's have the final say for each unit - for example some units allow employees to request flexible schedules to accommodate an occasional appointment (i.e. make up some or all of the time during the same pay period), where other units are extremely strict with scheduling so as to mandate staff start and end times and break times (if permitted at all) and also require leave time use in 15-minute increments for every bit of time outside of the set hours.
Parking can be challenging, especially as more parking has been taken due to construction projects.  Staff and admin can expect to pay around $300 per year to park near any buildings or about $80 to park in remote lots, but spots are hard to come by unless you get there before 8:30AM. Gold Zone is more expensive but worth the peace of mind.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Graduate assistant 11 salaries reported	$29,693 per year
Graduate researcher 3 salaries reported	$31,333 per year
Research assistant 5 salaries reported	$36,700 per year
Teaching assistant 6 salaries reported	$17.50 per hour
Assistant professor 5 salaries reported	$56,000 per year

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